Early American Poetry

Reading: Literature Standard 2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text

Theme: the main subject that is being discussed or described in a piece of writing, a movie, etc.

: a particular subject or issue that is discussed often or repeatedly

: the particular subject or idea on which the style of something (such as a party or room) is based

With your neighbor discuss the following question(s):

What is connotation?What is Transcendentalism?Who was Ralph Waldo Emerson?

Quiz:Take out a sheet of paper, put your name and class period in the top left hand corner, underneath put the date, and on the top line in the middle of the paper write “Connotation Quiz.”

1. Write a definition of connotation.2. Write a word that carries a positive connotation and explain your

reasoning why you believe this.3. Write a word that carries a negative connotation, and explain your

reasoning why you believe this.

(When you are finished: flip your paper over;at the end I will have you pass them forward so that I can collect the quizzes).

Transcendentalism

Ralph Waldo EmersonThe Father of Transcendentalism

May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882

•Studied at Harvard and later taught there•Became a Minister but resigned after the death of his first wife, Ellen Tucker, of tuberculosis in 1831•Married second wife, Lydia Jackson in 1835, settled in Concord, Massachusetts•Known for challenging traditional thought, became the father of Transcendentalism•A notable major American literary and intellectual figure to widely explore the human condition in relation to nature; wrote seriously about, and sought to broaden, the domestic audience for classical Asian and Middle Eastern works. He not only gave countless readers their first exposure to non-Western modes of thinking, metaphysical concepts, and sacred mythologies, but he also shaped the way subsequent generations of American writers and thinkers approached the vast cultural resources of Asia and the Middle East.•Famous for: Multiculturalism•Published most famous work: Nature 1836 which started headway for Transcendentalism as a cultural movement •1837- The American Scholar•In 1840 started the magazine the Dial (Ernest Hemingway wrote for this magazine)•The Poet- Written in 1841-1843 (Inspired Walt Whitman to write Leaves of Grass who later became known as “The American Poet.)•He said the Poet is the creator and representative of beauty and that beauty is the center of the universe. "Words and deeds are quite indifferent modes of the divine energy. Words are also actions, and actions are a kind of words."

Concord, MA

The Sublimeas

PerceptionAnd

Ideological State

The Oxbow painting By

Thomas Cole

Looking over the Connecticut river in North Hampton, MA

Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Themes of Transcendentalism:

Read the following excerpt alone, then with your partner discuss and decide on the poem’s theme by choosing one word or phrase to highlight that could back up your logic (feel free to use your phone to look up words that you do not know).1.

Winters knowEasily to shed the snow,And the untaught Spring is wiseIn cowslips and anemones.Nature, hating art and pains,Baulks and baffles plotting brains;Casualty and SurpriseAre the apples of her eyes;But she dearly loves the poor,And, by marvel of her own,Strikes the loud pretender down.

Titled Nature

Possible Themes:• Nature and Compassion • Wisdom and Knowledge• Casualty and Surprise

Discuss the following with your partner:

• If you had to give Westlake High School a theme, what would it be?

• What about the state of Utah?• The United States of America?

Aside from his major transcendentalist themes, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote an essay titled The Poet. In The Poet he addressed the need for someone domestic to North America to break the rules. This essay largely influenced Walt Whitman who is still today known as “The American Poet.” Whitman rose to Emerson’s call and constructed his famous book of poems titled Leaves of Grass. Here is a passage from Emerson’s essay that likely influenced Whitman:

“For it is not meters, but a meter-making argument, that makes a poem, — a thought so passionate and alive, that, like the spirit of a plant or an animal, it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new thing. The thought and the form are equal in the order of time, but in the order of genesis the thought is prior to the form.”

What phase in this passage summarizes the theme of the statement?

I highlighted “an architecture of its own”Here is a traditional Rhyming poem:

Here is a passage from Whitman:

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,Hoping to cease not till death.

(Notice the difference in length in each line, the informal tone, and anything else you can find that is breaking rules from traditional rhyme scheme, meter, and stanza).

Questions?

Emerson greatly influenced Henry David

Thoreau, of whom we will discuss next time.

What we did

English 10H:• Obtain a copy of The Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn from the book depository down the end of the D Hall (north end) on the left side.

• Take quiz on connotation and colons bring back to class and turn in to the basket for me to grade

• Get notes on Emerson, Transcendentalism, and Early American Poetry from a friend of what we talked about in class or read through the Power Point notes.

• Discussed Theme• Come get a handout from Mr. Bond

English 10:• Take quiz on connotation and colons

bring back to class and turn in to the basket for me to grade

• Get notes on Emerson, Transcendentalism, and Early American Poetry from a friend of what we talked about in class or read through the Power Point notes.

• Discussed Theme• Come get a handout from Mr. Bond